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Solar

  • Maine Passive House Builder Tweaks His Package

    Chris Corson is working on another Passive House — this time, with a more ample budget, and a more complex design.

     
  • When to Use a Heat-Pump Water Heater (Subscriber content)

    Q: A customer wants me to install one of the new heat-pump water heaters in the ground-floor utility room of a house built on a slab. I don't have any direct experience with them, but since they work by drawing heat from the surrounding air, won't any energy savings in the winter be at least partly...

     
  • Maine Passive House: How Low Can He Go?

     
  • Builder's Guide to Windows

    There are more than 100 million homes and approximately 20 billion square feet of clear-glass residential windows in the U.S. Most of those homes are more than 30 years old, and as a result, the market is growing for replacement windows with energy-efficient insulating glass.

     
  • Low-E Window Film

    Instead of replacing a sound single-pane window, consider adding Solar Gard Silver AG 50 Low-E Window Film.

     
  • Maine Passive House: Transition Details ~

     
  • Building a Simple Passive House

    In September 2009 I completed a deep energy retrofit on a small house in Point Reyes Station, Calif., some 50 miles north of San Francisco.

     
  • Hydronic Heating for Low-Load Houses

    With the right hardware and layout, hot-water heating saves energy and makes ideal use of the sun.

     
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    JLC Report

    Passive House seeks broader appeal; proposed code changes stir controversy in North Carolina; more

     
  • Rinnai. The RH360 solar reheat kit provides efficient, consistent tankless backup for solar water heating. Previous other solar tankless backup solutions fed the hot line from the solar tank directly to the tankless backup unit, which would heat water when the temperature started to drop, which could lead to temperature fluctuations, the firm says. The RH360 kicks in only when the water temperature in the solar storage tank drops below a pre-set point, drawing the coldest water from the bottom of the solar storage tank to the tankless unit and returning it to the top of the tank, helping to maintain consistent-temperature hot water delivery, the maker says; minimal tank mixing allows for optimization of solar gain, and the elimination of off-cycle thermal circulation decreases heat loss. 866.746.6241. www.rinnai.us.

    Solar Tankless Water Heating Backup From Rinnai

    Rinnai. The RH360 solar reheat kit provides efficient, consistent tankless backup for solar water heating. Previous other solar tankless backup solutions fed the hot line from the solar tank directly to the tankless backup unit, which would heat water when the temperature started to drop, which...